No surprise, but disappointing anyways: Joe Curl has stepped down as the Houston coach.

I like coach Curl. He seemed a generous man and surely loved the game in all its iterations. And he had no issue with sharing credit.

University of Houston coach Joe Curl is a big believer in the junior college players, and not just because he coached at Trinity Valley for three years. He just point to Sancho Lyttle as an example of what JUCO’s can do for international and developing players. Lyttle came to the States from St. Vincent, in the British West Indies, “a great athlete who had incredible potential,” noted Curl. But, she had only played netball, never “American” basketball. “I give her junior college coach (Wade Scott, Clarendon) all the credit in the world for her development.”

“The junior colleges are worth their weight in gold. I’ve always believed that. In Sancho’s case, to get over the hurdles she needed to be able to be successful at the D-1 level junior college was absolutely priceless. Small town. Small classes. A coach that could drill her on the fundamentals of the rim, the backboard, her footwork. And she had the heart, the brain to do whatever she was asked.”

Houston weathered a few SEC and Big 12 storms before they signed her in 2003 “and the rest,” said Curl, “is history. She came in here and took us to a #3 seed in the NCAA tourney, a #8 seed, I believe, in her senior year and was a #5 pick in the WNBA draft. I think she improved a lot while she was here, but I really felt her real basis of who she is right now as player and a person…I give a lot of credit to Wade Scott and the program he had there.”